Vietnam

A squeeze in credit and price drops have led Vietnamese exporters to delay or halt shipments of robusta beans totaling more than 150,000 metric tons.

Vietnam is the world’s largest producer of robusta and the news saw futures contracts rise 2.5% for the week ending March 19, the first weekly rise since January. The 10-ton contracts, first introduced January, 2008, had fallen to a record low the preceding week.

The news has some concerned about stability in the supply chain.

"This is something that could create big problems down the road," Shawn Hackett, president of commodities research at Hackett Financial Advisors Inc., told Business Week. "If roasters don’t get delivery of the supply they thought they were going to get, they have to go buy replacement coffee."